Unchained - Live From Consensus: What the Media Really Thinks About Crypto - Ep.66

Episode Date: June 13, 2018

This is a recording of a panel discussion I participated in with a couple other reporters and crypto PR people at Consensus. (It was at the same time as Jack's talk, so it's totally understandable if you missed it. Also, the room was freezing. I was shivering the entire time.) The other panelists were Leigh Cuen of CoinDesk, Avi Salzman of Barron's (and my old classmate from grad school!), Jill Richmond of Spark PR, Trey Ditto of Ditto PR, and the discussion was moderated by Frank Chaparro of Business Insider. We discussed whether or not crypto projects and publications should engage in pay to play (I would have hoped the answer to this would obvious to everyone, but alas), coverage that could cause investors to lose money, whether or not the business model of the media industry drives clickbait headlines and why journalists have a responsibility to include more of the nuances in crypto. We also dish up some practical tips and insider info, like how crypto projects can get media coverage, what factors reporters use in deciding whether or not to write about a project they're pitched, and whether or not crypto teams should hire crypto-specific PR firms. Apologies that there was no mic for the questions from the audience. I've left the questions in, as you can sometimes hear them faintly. I tried my best to have someone or myself recap each question. For the question about our favorite stories, these were the articles we named My favorite of mine: my phone hijacking story: https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2016/12/20/hackers-have-stolen-millions-of-dollars-in-bitcoin-using-only-phone-numbers/#464b730d38ba Leigh liked a series I did exposing fake advisors: https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2017/11/01/alex-tapscotts-crypto-vc-firm-going-public-with-100m-cad-falsely-touted-4-blockchain-stars-as-advisors/#483d3ff31b1f https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2017/11/03/cibc-walks-from-tapscotts-nextblock-global-after-falsehoods-revealed-more-misrepresentations-found/#724de0e13cbf https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2017/11/05/alex-tapscotts-crypto-vc-firm-aborts-public-listing-will-return-money-after-falsehoods-revealed/#1d4de0a62e27 Leigh's favorite stories: Cryptocurrency in Iran: http://www.ibtimes.com/bitcoin-adoption-rate-iran-surges-despite-censorship-protests-2636607 http://www.ibtimes.com/initial-coin-offerings-are-coming-iran-2653474 Cryptocurrency for sex workers: http://www.ibtimes.com/beyond-bitcoin-blockchain-tokens-sex-industry-2601252 Avi's favorite story: https://www.barrons.com/articles/bitcoin-storms-wall-street-1512188427 Thank you to our sponsors! Keepkey: https://www.keepkey.com Token Agency: https://tokenagency.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, everyone. This is a recording of a panel I participated in with other reporters and crypto PR folks at the Consensus Conference in New York. The other panelists were Lee Quinn of Coin Desk, Avi Salzman of Barrens, who also happens to be my old classmate from grad school, which was fun. Jill Richmond of SparkP.R. and Trey Ditto of Ditto PR. The discussion was moderated by Frank Chapparo of Business Insider. We give a behind-the-scenes look at how media covers the space, offer up our critique, Spar over the rampant and egregious pay-to-play schemes in the industry, plus have tips on how crypto projects can get coverage. Apologies in advance that there was no mic for the questions from the audience. I've left the questions in, as you can sometimes hear them faintly. I tried my best to have someone or myself recap each question. Otherwise, enjoy the show. Token Agency is a proven full-service blockchain startup accelerator,

helping launch only the best and brightest projects in crypto. With a project acceptance rate of less than 1%. let their team of experienced advisors and marketing specialists build gravity around your company. To learn about their top projects and more, check out tokenagency.com. Today's episode is brought to you by Keith Key, the easy, safe, and simple way to protect your Bitcoin, Ether, Lightcoin, and many other digital assets. There's no time like the present to protect yourself from hackers, malware, and viruses. Visit keepkey.com to order your secure hardware wallet today and use the code Unchained 10 for a limited time 10% discount. We'll be exploring, you know, in this crazy crypto universe, obviously at the intersection

of it all are the media folks and the PR and reps, repping these companies, trying to get the word out, and then the media folks who are trying to sift through that which is real and that which is hype. And so we'll be exploring a lot of issues that face folks on the PR side of things and the journalist side of things. And so we have some of the top folks in the space from both PR and media. I'll let each one introduce themselves, starting with Lee Quinn. Hi, I'm Lee Quinn. I'm a business reporter at CoinDesk. Hi, I'm Jill Richmond.

I'm the SVP at SparkChane. And I also am the co-founder of an organization called Data, which is the Digital Asset Trade Association. My name's Trey Ditto, and I run a PR firm called Ditto, and probably half of our businesses somewhere in the crypto blockchain and ICO space. My name is Laura Shin, and I'm a crypto journalist, and I host the podcasts Unchained and Unconfirmed. And I'm Francisco Chapar. I'm a finance reporter, a business insider covering crypto market structure and a few other things that are less interesting than that.

Before we got over here, I was talking to Jill about, you know, where does the onus fall, right? when it comes to fraud and other issues that, you know, have popped up in this space, you know, do media representatives of these companies have a responsibility to sort of make sure that, you know, their clients aren't, not necessarily engaging in nefarious activities, but, you know, hypey type, gimmicky type stuff? Or is it to shine light on important stories? So I'll let Jill sort of kick off what her thoughts. poor on that. Oh, yeah, sure. I mean, I think

the biggest issue, so let's look at the ecosystem a little bit, right? So, on one hand, you have all of these publications that are actually not essentially regulating themselves and are seen as top publications in the crypto space and are happy to take

pay for play press releases and treat them as newsworthy. And what happens with all of these companies is these companies use them as optics, they put them on their website, you know, they say such publication has given them kind of the stamp

of approval and they're a paid publication. And I first think that it's the responsibility of the publications themselves that need to be a little bit self-regulatory, so to speak, right? And it's kind of part of the entire problem within the ecosystem. And

then I think we sort of landed somewhere around being worried about what's happened to the press release, right? That the press release may in fact be completely dead, because I asked you, where you get your information and how it works during your day. And the reality is press release isn't it. Right. Because it's not the most effective way to communicate in a space because trust is so important. Relationships are so important. And a press release isn't really a person, right?

You know, when I am looking for a story, I'm looking for something that I can trust. And at the end of the day, that's a, you know, maybe it's one line in a Twitter DM or maybe it's a quick phone call from someone I know really well. We're joined now by an excellent reporter from Barron's, and care to introduce yourself and maybe weigh in. Sure, I'm Avi Salzman. I'm a reporter at Barron's writing for the magazine and website on stocks and economics, but also increasingly about crypto and blockchain.

And, yeah, it's a tough space to cover. I think that it's been really fun. building relationships in the past year I think that press releases don't necessarily make much of a mark because you're sort of always starting from zero but if I can sit down with someone for 15 minutes get a sense that you know that their project is something worth worth following it's more likely that maybe you know down the road I'd write about it I think that you know it's writing about ICOs or writing about

projects before you sort of watch them develop can be really difficult, I think, you know. So let me take the other side of the argument then, which is, one thing I've learned, like, working with all these ICOs, I were talking about earlier, is most people out there crypto, like, have no idea how a story gets written. Like, we all talk about, like, they're like, oh, so I write the story for the reporter, we're going to write it together. And I was a former reporter at the AP in Dallas. And so I've always thought, like, a press release is for the press. And I do think, probably a lot of people here

wondering, like, what do I do? Like, how does PR work? And I do think, though, a press release has a purpose besides trying to get a story. It's also about educating, like, your community, right? So if you're in an ICO and you've got, you know, X thousands of people on Telegram and you need to be, like, keeping in touch with them, I think it's okay

to write, like, good press releases. We're going to be at this event. We're speaking here. We have a new, um, advisor. And it's just, so what I've seen is like the ICOs are using these as just content opportunities to keep their community, like, updated on what they're doing. And a lot of times I'm like, I'll never even send it to a report. One of the issues, go ahead. Well, one thing I want to go back to is this pay-for-play issue that's going on, which is I really think that the

crypto media needs to take responsibility for the fact that there are a number of publications out there that focus exclusively on the crypto space. And what they do is they take, they take, pay-for-play, which means that they take payment for articles to be published that are not marked as sponsored. They're not marked as advertisements. And that's why sometimes you'll see this coverage that is like clearly sketchy, that hasn't dug deep into what's going on. I've seen people comment, like, well, what about blah, blah, blah? Like, you know, kind of pointing out the areas where they didn't, you know, were the reporter neglected to mention, like, oh, by the way, they're also doing this sketchy thing over here. And the reason is because I know behind the

scenes what's going on is that they're taking money for these posts and they're, you know, obviously then not going to publish anything negative about them. You know that as one of the leading reporters in the state. Yeah, well, I wanted to write this like investigative story about it, but I had like too many things I was doing at forums and never got to publish it before. Is that it? Is that it just hasn't gone to the masses yet? Why have these, you know, we all know the names, right?

We all know which semi-trade pubs she's talking about, right? But how did they get that credibility and what is our job as media professionals? to sort of chip away at it and to make sure that our stories. Do we? I mean, you just said, we all know. I don't think we do. I mean, maybe this audience does,

but I don't think we all do. Not only, right? And so I think there in lies some of the first, like the first problems, right? Because, as Laura rightly points out, you know, you've got these publications. We all know that they're behind the scenes. There is a lack of credibility

and a lack of protocol and a lack of all the above. But the rest of the sort of these, of the rest of the population is trying to, you know, educate themselves about projects, about cryptocurrency, about the, you know, about, you know, the business stories are reading these publications and they don't know that they're not credible. And I also, there's a question of values that are within the organization. So, yeah, I mean, like, we definitely have things that would be, like, quote-unquote, fake news, and maybe we can recognize that, but readers can't.

But we also have some players in the space that are trusted and respected, that aren't doing the due diligence that they should. And so there's a lot of confusion, right? Like there is no clear-cut standpoint about what is sponsored content in the space that the way that there are in other kinds of branded content. If you read a fashion magazine, you very clearly understand the relationship that Vogue has with these designers. But you don't understand the relationship that crypto publications have with the companies

themselves. Yeah, so again, I'll probably take the other side to this again, which, is like earned media alone isn't going to solve your problems or like is it a solution to whatever you're trying to sell? And I think... I'm sorry, what is earned media? Like, I offer you a client to talk to and you write a story. So just non-paid earned media.

That's like a PR phrase, right? That people are like, what does that mean? So on one hand, as a PR person, though, I have to play in the murky waters that exist. Wait, why? I think you can put your own rules out there and be like, I'm not going to engage in pay for play, right? I mean, you can have your own standards.

Yes, because I think that's one of the things. I mean, arguably, you know, the first thing that happens when I'm sort of sitting down with the client is, you know, where do we think that paid plays within this entire strategy? And I'm often like, it doesn't. It needs to be more sponsored. I don't want it playing within the strategy. Actually, let's kind of take it off the table.

Isn't it the outlet's responsibility to sort of create those standards, maybe not necessarily the business folks who are really just getting paid from their clients and do something. Like across media, we're seeing sponsored content as becoming a thing, right? The New York Times has it, Forbes has it.

I mean, like, name any publication, they all have it. But it's clearly marked as basically paid. Exactly. I don't see why, you know, you... But they don't run those, to be sure, right? They don't run those websites. They don't run those publications. No, they do.

Like BuzzFeed, you know, their own team doing that. No, I mean, like the PR folks who are getting their clients paid media, you know, they don't run those, they don't call the shots to have those indications of. No, but they can choose to, you know, have sponsored content that is marked sponsor versus, you know, saying, oh, we decline to have sponsored and is not March sponsored. That's like, that's shady. They can choose to say, we're not going to do that for our clients. Like, if the project is really good enough, then the project wouldn't need that kind of coverage.

Yeah, but that also gets into like what the media does and doesn't cover. The media doesn't always cover good projects, right? I mean, there's lots of good projects. There's no way you can cover every good one out there. So if, again, like if 50% or 75% of what I do is like honest earned media, and then there's a podcast over here that, you know, it's all pay to play. And I have a legitimate, credible client. And is it marked paid?

No, a lot of the podcasts are not paid. They're not marked paid. Most of the credit, they really, actually, some of the podcasts are not. I personally don't think you have to do that. So can we just talk about what the media is, though, for a minute?

Because I feel like we talk about it, like it's the Mossad or the FBI, as if we're all coordinating together and has secret initiatives. I think a lot of people on crypto Twitter would think that. And that makes me think of the question that I was going to raise,

which is, you know, you see throughout the Twittosphere, the, you know, the FOD and the, you know, a lot of anger towards certain media outlets that have interesting graphs tweeted at all hours of the night. I won't name the media organization. But is

there a, focusing now on the journalists, are some of them not doing their due diligence? Where are they sort of missing the bar? Because there is sort of, and maybe it's chilling out a little bit now, but ever since I entered the space writing about it a

year ago, there is a really broad skepticism much more so than of like, ICO journal or, you know, CCN as an example, there's much more skepticism of CNBC, coin, even Coin desk and Business Insider, than there is of these other things. Is that something that we're doing wrong? Or what do you think is the impetus for that? Yeah, I mean, I think on the other side of the spectrum, what I worry about is when some

mainstream media kind of hype things too much, because here we have these like everyday investors that are buying this stuff and they don't fully understand. things. You know, I've had people might know that, like, I think there are very legitimate questions to raise about XRP. And I've had people say to me, oh, but it's the third largest crypto. And I'm like, yeah, they're 100 billion units. People think, like, oh, it's cheap because it's less than a dollar. And they don't understand it can be overpriced at 80 cents or 30 cents or even 10 cents or, you know, whatever. They don't get these things. And so, like, I sometimes see some of the coverage where it's like, oh, the price went up.

And, like, you know, they make it sound like it's so excited. Here's how you buy it. Yeah. And it's a little bit. like, oh, no, no, no, no, whoa, whoa, whoa, like, please point out, like, these are all the ways that could go wrong, or, like, you know, there's, there's just a lot of nuance in this space, and so sometimes when I see these, like, headlines, I just get really worried, like, people are going to lose their money on this stuff. Like, you need to be careful in how you cover it.

Forbes has that editor's note, right, in their stories that, you know, cryptocurrency investing is very risky. Oh, right. Hello, I was part of the group that, like, Institute of that. I was, like, I think we should put something in there just to, like, make people realize this is a very new space and you can very easily lose your money. So something's a good point for you two though, is that

most of the stories you all write don't really have like someone that's like bearish. They don't have like a naysayer in it, right? It's like two Goldman guys start amazing company and that's the entire story. There's no to be sure in a lot of these cases. Well, there's no third source that says... That's bad journalism.

So what you're saying is there's bad journalism and I agree with you, it exists. Yeah, I always try to get somebody on the other side. Yes. So why this project might be, you know, Bukaki or something. Yeah, why it might not work out? But I think what you're pointing out about this fear about there being, again, bad coverage and overhyped coverage, click-bady coverage, again, really points back to the concept of

what media is, and we need to remember that it's an industry, and we can all make fun of CNBC all we want, but the fact is they're paying salaries, and that's the business strategy. And so we think about, you know, it's the media's responsibility to this, it's immediate responsibility to that. It's immediate responsibility to pay their employees. It's a business model. It's a business model problem.

Exactly. So it still goes to the heart of a business model problem, right? Yes. You know, during your day and whatever time you're trying to push out a story, how much time do you have? And I think it's certainly one that needs to happen. As soon as you're doing a story, Laura, I know you do excessive and really good coverage

in making sure that you're getting all of the angles of the story. I've seen many outlets that don't, and I wonder if it's just because it's a matter of, you know, incentives are not aligned, financial incentives are not aligned for the, you know, for the journalist. to do that additional diligence coverage, third-party information. I mean, right?

Instead of just covering the market cap, right? Is that your experience? You know, it depends on what audience you're writing for. I think everyone's audience is very different. So my audience, I think there are a lot of people very skeptical of the space. So, you know, you come at it with that understanding. I think you write about it. understanding that it's a high bar for your readers to clear to say that this is something that's

worth watching. I think that's really important talking about the audience that you're writing for and how that impacts what they do, right? If you write for an audience that they come to you for high quality content and are not coming to you for everything every day, we're talking to the general mainstream public, you're trying to get as much out as you possibly can, and you're actually selling the audience to advertisers, right? You sell the product of content.

Most media companies sell the product of audience. And so that will drive completely different kinds of stories. It will drive clickbitty stories. It will drive stories that don't require that kind of, they don't get that kind of fact-checking that they need. Because their objective is not to serve the audience. It's to serve an audience, whatever they can do to get that audience. And a lot of these issues, though, they're not really crypto-specific at the end of the day. When we think about, you know, maybe...

They're hyperbolic in the space, but yeah. It's really just, you know, know, shining a light on some of the issues that exist in media today. How do we get those views? How do we get those clicks? But like you said, yeah, I think maybe amplified a bit. Yeah, but I don't want to underestimate readers because I do think that they do go for quality. You know, so I wouldn't say like they only go for the stupid headlines.

I don't think they only go for stupid headlines. No, not at all. So then why are so many stupid headlines being written either? Yeah, well, that's what I want to know. You tell us, Frank. Well, not my good ones. I'm the moderator. There's all different kinds of audiences, right?

So there are definitely audiences who come with a very thoughtful approach, and there are audiences that don't. So I do think that some audiences want high-quality content. I think some audiences don't understand what it is they're looking for with high-quality content. I mean, can I ask a question, which is, Laura, do you feel like you write for a very sophisticated audience? Or that you think a podcast are really for a little bit more

of a sophisticated audience? Well, so the podcast probably are. Yeah. But when I wrote, I tried to write for, you know, a broad audience. Yep. And definitely certain articles really, really, really took off and got a lot of views. So I don't think it was like the kind of thing where only sophisticated people could come and understand them. And there was something else I was going to say earlier.

Oh, which was just like, you know, when we're talking about kind of like only writing a story that's basically just a headline and like doesn't go into the new one. I think, you know, that's dangerous also because you have to remember that no reader is as into this world as we are. So if you don't try to get those nuances in, they're really not going to get them, you know? Like, we may know all these kind of ins and outs and, you know, that not everything is, like, a foregone conclusion in the space. You know, that, like, Bitcoin really could fail or Ethereum could fail or whatever. But they're not going to get that. And so I do think that's why it's important to, like, get those details there. There's a little more responsibility to be more exploits.

about some of the things that we take for granted. I think that's right. Moving more towards the PR side of things to focus on all aspects of the space. And a pretty simple question, but for folks out there aspiring, building some sort of project, what do you think is, you know, key to helping get their message out there from both the PR perspective and the journalist's perspective? If someone came up to you and said, how can I effectively get on a coin desk? or business, etc. or Barron's, or on Lawrence Podcast. What is the answer to that question?

Well, I mean, we had this conversation, so I would pre-made conversation, but I think for, I always tend to look at the company and then focus on the people, right? So it's a lot easier for me to tell the story of, look, this person came with former PayPal executive doing X, Y, and Z, former, you know, credit quiz, credit swiss, trader doing,

et cetera, et cetera. Let me, it happens to have exceptional industry knowledge and are now entering a new space to solve a very specific problem. It's a lot easier for me to sit down with a journalist and go, hey, as you said, hey, by the way, Frank, I just want to let you know, so-and-so, was at PayPal, was an executive at PayPal, is doing X, Y, and Z, and you're like, oh, really interesting. That is a lot faster to get to you than it is to write, you know, a really long pitch story about the company. And also it starts to generate the entire credibility piece, which is like this is a company. These are people, these are founders who understand the problem that they're solving. They've been in this industry for an exceptional mental.

I feel like I'm saying very obvious things, but that is at least, that's sort of the first. Is it more about the people for you when you write about, you know, thinking about those more profile-like pieces as opposed to, you know, Jamie Diamond pontificating ad nauseum? What is it for you that attracts you to writing a profile? Writing your profile? Those are two very different things. A profile, profile specifically. A profile is going to be really tricky, right? A profile has to be somebody who already has clout in the space,

has already got a lot of traction behind them, already has a resume that gets people's attention. But if you have a project that doesn't have a high profile person, then you need to do the work. And if you're doing something really interesting and you actually are changing people's lives and actually serving customer needs, then I will do my best to give you five minutes of my time

to sell me on this. to convince me that you deserve coverage, even though other people haven't covered you before. And I found stories that I felt like were really great, and I'm glad I gave those people the time of day, because before they came to me and tried to get me to pitch XYZ software, they went and they had a group of people, and they actually solved their problem.

Yeah. So, and I think, like, I mean, not everyone has, like, a PayPal executive on their team. Exactly. So what you do when you don't. So, and here's what's crazy, too, is, like, these people come to me, and they have started a company that, like, potential clients.

Yeah, like new business, new client. Starting company, no one's ever heard of before. Like, you ever talked to the press before? No. So they've never talked to the media before. There's like zero, like, awareness at all. And then all of a sudden they're like, can you get me on Laura Shenz podcast?

And so, and what's even funnier is that the industry that they're trying to change, like through blockchain or whatever, they don't really have any experience in as well. So, like, we did this like ICO out of Brazil, and they were, was impacting kind of like how we invest for retirement. And the first time I told them was, do you have like a financial spokesperson? Like if we're going to be reaching out and talking about like, you know, how blockchain can help in investing, like, you need an investment expert.

So I think the first thing you all should do when you're thinking about like, oh, how am I going to get media coverage is I think you make sure you have like a credible spokesperson. And then I think also like, and, you know, I mean, and I work with you all all the time, I think it's also about just being a good source, you know, when Jamie Diamond says something, right, like send a reporter like five smart sentences about what you think that means, right? Like when breaking news happens in crypto, and it's always the same thing. It's a hacking, it's Jamie Diamond,

Bitcoin's up or down, and it's Goldman Sachs dude enters in their space. And like, it's the same four stories every month. And so, like, your ability to, like, really think about, like, saying something smart and giving it to a reporter and, like, helping them, like, giving them value.

Like, I'm sure you guys get emails all the time, time, and if you're emailing a reporter and you're not giving them any value, you know, do it. Please don't. Don't do it. Send them something smart. Like, explain to them in, like, three sentences, like, what you're doing. If you're, if you're pitched to a reporter is, like, over three paragraphs, it's just,

it's just not going to get read. Honestly, can I just, like, throw something out there? You don't even have to write a full email. If you can tell me in bullet points what I need to know, I like that. Maybe other reporters don't. I do. I do, yeah. Or, like, slide into my DMs on Twitter.

Yeah. If you can, like, one, two, three, why do I care? Like, what gives you credibility? And when is this happening? Cryptocurrency is vibrant and exciting. But it's not without its share of bad actors. Exchanges and personal accounts can get hacked. Computers can be infected with malware.

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To schedule a demo with the founders inside the virtual universe alpha, resembling Westworld, go to viewtoken.io, that's VUtoken.com, and check out token.com. to learn more. I see a question in the audience, and since I am slightly in charge, I will take the question. Hey, Laura, I sent you a ridiculously long crazy email. Yeah, there you go. See? Rule number one. Don't do that. Like you a day was a scam. I knew it a month ahead and I looked at the website. Charlie Lee apparently

didn't do this and so he made a tweet and then it went to an headline on point or telegraph desk, whatever. Did you have a question? What's a question? I was like wondering, you're the only journalist I know. I feel like I watch a lot of YouTube and nonsense. And like, there needs to be some more. Well, there's some really great journalists on this panel.

I'm going to follow you once I learned your names. Much thanks. My question is, how do we like get better news from you? Pay for it? I think that there is. I think the problem was, if I can opine for a few, minutes or a few seconds. I think the space early on

the problem lies in the fact that traditional media outlets with the exception of a few folks didn't really pay enough attention to the space in identifying projects outside of, you know, maybe in 2016 Bitcoin somehow went up to a thousand

dollars or something or whatever the price was at that point and it would get one article maybe now we're seeing I mean I follow John Lothie and he's a trader on Chicago as a newsletter. I mean, there were times over when the thing was running up to 20,000 that 70% of the newsletter would be crypto news. So I think what happened was there was a void right back then that was filled in by the YouTubers, by the tweeters, by the, you know, who's it whatsoever, you know,

blockchain, Joey, blockchain, whatever. And the media, the traditional media, wasn't paying attention to doing their due deal. But it's a new space. Now we're just getting it. But it's a new space. There's just, there's only so many reporters that can like come into this space at a time. And it's new. And so there are new reporters. There's a growing number of reporters. And so I think you're just going to see the coverage, you know, I think mature and probably be more robust, you know, over time.

It'll be like 100 Lorish ends in like five years. God willing. So I just want to, because we're going to actually put this on a podcast, I just want to recap what the quote-to-quote question was, which was, I guess somebody emailed me about it was like a kind of a scam that you were trying to tell me about. Light pay is not real

and never was it was so obvious. Light pay. Yeah, about light. pay saying that it wasn't real. So I might remember this. Just as people know, because I do get so many messages, I literally get like a million messages. I can't even get to explain how many messages I get. And there is so much noise.

And because I'm busy doing things, I may not read your email as, you know, closely as I want or have time to investigate. There's a lot of these investigative things. They take a lot of time. That's the other thing. So if my plate is already full at that moment, which pretty much any week you will find me with like a super, super full plate. So that's why unfortunately, like, I do get notified about scams.

I do get notified about a gazillion really interesting projects, like all kinds of things. Do I always have the time to, you know, put into it that I wish I didn't know. Unfortunately, I don't. The really interesting thing, though, about the crypto space is that that was figured out, like, pretty quickly. No, it took a month. Okay. But there were some other ones where I've been notified about things, and then, like, within 24 to 48 hours, I will see something that, you know, the community figures it out.

So maybe that one took a little bit longer, but. But it's also like, I mean, sorry, the audacity of you to be like, why didn't you respond to my email? You know? It's like, and I think, like, and I don't want, you shouldn't annoy reporters, but, like, if they don't respond to your email, they didn't tell you no. And it just means, like, email them again the next week with something like new and different and better. right? It's like, you have to build this relationship with a reporter by like going to them on a regular basis

not annoying them with good email. But I think his case is a little bit different because he wasn't trying to promote his project. He was trying to like get me to warn the community about something which is like a little bit of a different thing. I guess turning the wheels a little bit and focusing on something slightly different but connected.

Given that you have a much more broader mandate, right, similar to myself, do you think that and you know, connecting to sort of how much media coverage there actually is at the space, given how small it is. I mean, at the end of the day, we're only talking, what is the latest, 400 billion market cap of the whole thing. I mean, are there too many stories being written on it? Are we not focusing on, you know, scams that could be taking place at the big Wall Street banks because we're too busy running about Bitcoin?

I think the coverage sometimes does overlap a little too much. So like the gentleman over there said, he's talking about specific coins that may or may not be a scam. I think that there's sort of a hole in that coverage. I think that there's an entrepreneurial journalist could fill that hole to some degree to talk about sort of more for the community and if it's legitimate. I know CoinDust does a lot of good stuff specifically about coins, but there could be someone even more granular getting into that kind of stuff. For my readers, calling out a scam on a coin that's worth a few million dollars is not, they're not going to be interested because they're not buying it,

so it doesn't protect them per se. So it really, for my audience, it's just a little bit different as to what gets the level where it's going to catch their attention. So I think there are big holes in the coverage, but I do think that sometimes we all cover the same things to some degree, just because it rises to a level of interest, it has a name that people are interested in. So I think, you know, it's a tricky space right now. I think that, but I think there are entrepreneurial journalists.

Obviously, Laura is filling an enormous niche. And there are other people, though, who could come in in other parts of that niche. I mean, this is an incredibly exciting entrepreneurial area where there are people who need to call out the BS and there are people who need to promote some of the more promising projects. And just write whatever the news of the day. Yeah, and it's not necessarily going to be, you know, my publication, which will still cover this area a lot. You know, obviously there are several unicorns now. It's a really exciting, important area, but we're not going to cover it on a granular level, but somebody should, I think.

What's your take? Yeah, can I, like, it's a business, right? We are employing people or are selling people, and there are so many nonprofit journalism organizations that if you really want more coverage or something, paid nonprofits be an active part of their community, there are organizations that are actively seeking out readers to participate in the development of their strategy, and make it worth their time, show them that you're willing to engage, that you're willing to pay for high-quality content that focuses on this issue. Because businesses will sell what people will buy, right? So if you want a certain kind of coverage, be an active participant in the community.

And, you know, you mentioned there are so many great things with people do just by calling things out on social media and contributing to the space in that way. You don't have to be in PR. You don't have to be a journalist. Or go right it yourself. I mean, like, half of what we do is on the content side. It's like, again, I can only get you in front of so many reporters, like, in the span of our relationship. But, like, you know, whether it's medium or hack or noon or just, like, a blog on your own website, like, start writing on your own.

And there's, like, so many different ways that you can promote that stuff, whether it's through social media, paid and earn social channels. Like, like, you have the ability to create your own really good content if you see something going on in the space. And I really appreciate it when people do that. I do appreciate it when people go and they create content that they've researched something, that they've showed something. something. And sometimes I can use that to investigate further. It gives me clues of where I can look. So it's a good thing to do. I don't think that's a bad thing at all to do. One other thing I want to add in investigative stuff is that Nathaniel Popper at the New York Times I think he's doing really good work in that regard. So he's one of the few that.

So is Anna Reuters. Anna Reuters is killing it. Good stuff. Yeah, those are two people to follow. Great, great exceptional journalist. What has been your favorite story that you've written? and your favorite story that you've pitched that have gotten right? Start with you. Probably my favorite story was the phone hijacking one, just because that had the most impact, and that unfortunately is still going on,

where people, if you don't know what I'm talking about, they get their phone number stolen via, like, a customer service agent, basically at their cell phone provider, giving the number to the hacker, and then the hacker goes to, like, their email or their Twitter or their Facebook or whatever, and clicks forgot password and then has the code sent to the phone number, which is now in the hacker's possession or which, you know, all the calls and texts are going to their phone.

And then they changed the password, lock them out of their email, Twitter, Facebook, etc. It's happening. I mean, it just happened last week to Ryan Selkis, who was on my XRP episode. So that was a big story, and I think it hopefully helped a lot of people to protect their crypto, to know that that was going on and that they needed to do that for their phone numbers. Awesome. Favorite pitch? Favorite pitch that got somewhere. Better be one of my stories.

And I'm, I mean, I like live in the weeds of PR. Like, I'm, I like to actually do the work, which kind of separates me from most PR people. And so, like, on one end, like, you know, whether it's Frank or Lee, you know, it's like news of the day, like, email one of my clients, give me a good quote about this, send it to you guys. the story, like, you know, gets, like, you know, updated and a quotes in there. Like, like, that daily thrill, like, I mean, that's, like, a PR person. I'm just, like, I'm working hard and I'm getting shit done. You know, I think, like, on the, on the, probably, like, the bigger side is, like, I think, like, working with Nelly Bowles on a couple stories that are going to come out soon.

So, I'm sure she will find the truth in the story as well. So, yeah. Favorite pitch or favorite story? Favorite sort of like story that you pitched or, you know, one of your clients got in. You know, it was actually, I mean, it wasn't even a story that we pitched, but it was nice to hear a project that I care a great deal about, which is a client called Work and Protocol, which was, I know mentioned on your podcast, Laura. I know it's a company that you've been in front of a few times and certainly haven't told about, but it's a company that I care about that I'm following. I'm paying a lot of attention to what they're doing. And, you know, it was nice to hear Laura actually mention the reasons why she passed over it at the time and was still looking into it.

So for me, it helped me understand a little bit, A, about the project B. You know, right now, you know, they're certainly very quiet deliberately, but it's a project that I care about. By the way, I am interviewing them at that Oslo Freedom Forum in a couple weeks, and that episode will go out on my podcast. Stay tuned for that. Very cool. Before I even do mine, can I call it one of yours? I really liked Laura. You did an article about people who were lying in their pitch decks,

claiming they had advisors and investors that they did not have, and that was just a really excellent piece. Another super shady thing going on all the time in the ICO space. People claim that I'm an advisor to that. It's terrible. You'd be a good advisor to have, though. So everyone at this table knows that that happens, right? And we know what happens every day because we see it,

but we don't write about it because we assumed everyone else is. and you did it in such an excellent way of describing to the public what we see and exposing something that should not have been happening, and I just think you were on point. Reminds me of that meme. You ever see the meme with the guy who has his hair different in each picture?

And he's like the product developer, product manager, that's all the same dude? Exactly. It's a favorite story you've read. Okay, so I'm going to tie it, and it's actually two different series. I was really excited about the series I did about cryptocurrency in Iran,

because I think we talk a lot about censorship, And we talk about it like a concept and we forget there are real people on the planet that need that kind of technology and are using this technology today. So I was really excited to hear about people in Iran who are actually able to do business across borders with people who otherwise could not have done business with them and that it's actually helping them feed their families. And another one would be the series I've done about sex workers. Sex workers is another community that is actually using crypto for the censorship resistance that we built it for. And they've been doing it. I learned about cryptocurrency a lot before it became a big thing from them. It wasn't me coming with any genius idea.

People needed that. People need to have the ability to store their assets when they can't be discriminated against because the fact of the matter is that people genuinely are discriminated against. And I'm really excited when I can highlight the way that this technology can be used for good and not only can, but is today now and has been. I love all of my stories equally. They're like my children. I don't have children.

I think the best stories for me are the, you know, I think it ties into what Trey was saying are the scoops that, you know, really take the hustle and the grind to get them out the door. Most recently, last week I published that Coinbase was moving to support co-location and do a lot of other things to lure of high-frequency traders. And this week they pitched it to everybody, and everybody was a week late to the news. But I got it last week.

Those are the best stories. I think my first cover story on Bitcoin where I kind of mapped for the, because we have, you know, lots of hundreds of thousands of investors who read the site and who read the magazine and who are not familiar with the space. So I mapped it and showed the connections between traditional finance and crypto finance and kind of put together diagrams that I got a lot of good feedback on. People said, oh, I never understood how, you know, hedge funds actually work in the space. or how, so that was kind of a...

Before we got on, we were talking about how, you know, PR folks get a lot of flack for some of the things they might do on, but when we think about reporters, right, there's a huge information gap from, you know, maybe a lot of TV folks, not necessarily writing folks, but how do you sort of navigate that? TV? Well, it's like, this is the trickiest, like, space, because, and I'll talk quickly

because I can talk about this for a while. On the TV side, a producer's job is like news of the day, let's say like CBC is like markets, news of the day, and they're just not afforded the opportunity to go any deeper, you know, than that. So if you're going to be on TV, it's probably going to be like top line news, you know, whatever's going on.

I think kind of moving over the print side, there are, and it's hard because you like, you want to reach out to a reporter and a lot of times, like, I don't know if this reporter even understands blockchain. And so it's like, do I have to explain it to them first? And then am I insulting them at that point? And is that unusual from, I mean, I know you covered some tech companies too that aren't in this space.

I think it's just, again, the space is new. I think the number of reporters that are starting to cover this is going to keep growing. And so there's people like on this panel that I can email and be pretty straightforward, get to the news. And then there are reporters where I'm like having to explain blockchain to them, you know, before I even actually pitch the client. So it makes it hard. There is more undereducated reporters out there than educated reporters when it comes to this space.

And I think, like, the undereducated reporters, I almost just like, it's almost not even worth for me pitching them because if they haven't written about blockchain now, like what makes me think that they're going to write about it in the next, you know, 30 days? Is that your experience? A little bit. I think, you know, just piggybacking on what Trace said, you know, many times if we have broadcast

networks that are obviously focused on news of the day, then our clients were regularly speaking to them about being expert commentary, right? So it's, we're sitting down and trying to get them to a place where they can very quickly, you know, comment about what they can comment on really appropriately and fit them in in an appropriate place, and then maybe sort of spin it around in terms of their project, right? It sort of has to be this like, here's your entry point, right? You can really you can really come in there, I mean, quote, unquote, news Jackie, but you can come in there

and you can talk about X, Y, and Z and round it back to your, somehow rounded back to the implications of your project. So the better that they are, the more they get called back, right? And the first thing, the first thing a producer is going to ask

is, like, have they been on TV before? So I was like, anyone out here, if you all want to be on, like, TV, I would go and, like, go by, like, a camera and just start doing videos of, like, of your, like, self, like, you know, just talking about things. Like, your ability to, like,

send clips, you know, to a producer that shows, like, that you can handle your shit on TV. Like, that's at least going to get, like, a pinky toe in the door of you getting on to national TV. If you have no clips, if you've never been on TV before, you will never be on TV. Are there any questions in the audience? Is anybody sitting on something? Yeah, go ahead. What's your name? Where are you from?

Could you speak up just a little bit? Yep. Right. So in order to get the media attention, all these people actually have gone to the to 500 bubbleheads, so to speak, and they hire them as advisors. Keep the one minor to pitch, and then at the end of the day, they end up with the panels that no one described a smart contract, for instance, not in a couple of them. And that obviously loses the credibility in the whole industry itself,

whilst the actual problem is that the persons who are actually doing things behind the scenes, like the owners, and we actually actually... to develop the ICOs and the technology behind you have the actual duties. They never ever get there because in order to get there, you need to hire a kind of 4-500 bubblehead to your advisor report. And then, I mean, that's a kind of one...

So what's your question? I guess it kind of plays into what you were saying. You need to have an ability to, you know, make a presence and to, you know, walk it and be a voice for the... the firm, and that's not always going to be the guys that are actually building out stuff. And let me just summarize that also for the podcast. Sure, go ahead.

The comment was basically that for a project to get media attention, they often feel like they need to get Fortune 500 executives to kind of speak to the project, but then the real people that are building it are the developers for the team. And so your concern is that the real people that are behind it, they're not getting the media coverage is at it. Do you have a question that you wanted to? Right. So, I mean, what usually happens is that if you keep that one liner to the monkey that represents you as a Fortune 500 bubblehead, I've got five a couple of them myself.

The message for the actual bottom of just to even cut it. But that's, you know. So that's a fair, that is actually, it's a fairish comment. And I'm not going to, I'm going to say something. And then I think y'all can probably, like, bill off of it, is. like a year ago, I was like, what, I was asking all these, like, crypto guys, like, what makes for a good ICO? And then we, like, went through this whole list. And then I was thinking about, okay, but what's the media interested in? And there wasn't too much overlap between how do you spot a good ICO and then how do you get media coverage, you know, of that. So I think there is, like, you do have to understand, like, you know, a good super technical project may not get the media coverage because it doesn't necessarily have the things that a reporter is always looking for. And what are those things that we're looking? I don't know if I agree with that.

I disagree as well. Yeah, I mean, if there are good technical merits to the project, then the reporter should be able to figure that out. I mean, it definitely probably depends on the type of reporter, but when I'm, like, looking at whether or not I'm going to cover a project, I'm definitely not looking at whether or not they have a Fortune 500, you know, executive speaking well about them. That's definitely not what's going to make me be like, oh, I should definitely cover this. if anything, that's like a red flag that maybe they don't have something good, right? You know, what I do is like, I definitely talk to developers who've looked at the code who can point out to me, like, hey, you know, I noticed these red flags in the GitHub, like, you know, these are other things that I am concerned about, like, oh, you know,

I'm not sure about the way they're selling this or about the marketing. Like, there are a lot of other ways to assess projects that are kind of more substantive. and that's basically what I look into whether or not I'm going to cover something and how I'm going to cover it. We do are damned us, frankly, to make sure that everyone who is behind a project that's in a room before we're equipping

the Fortune 500 exact, certainly on the technical side, to line up both messaging and talking points so that at least they're A, not off message and B, not wrong, right? So I think to some extent, to some extent we do the best job that we can as the agency of record

to make sure that we're tying everything together as best as we can between the technical team and the executive team to make sure that the thought leader or the top, the person who's basically talking on behalf of the company can speak accurately to the

technicalities that I believe lots of the reporters do want to hear. Certainly Laura Shen and there's a whole great deal of other reporters that are taking deep dives into the company's technical, you know, diligence, so to speak, cleanliness. I also want to point out who are you wanting to talk to, right? So as a younger reporter, I don't make the calls.

I have a boss, and my boss wants to sell us to a certain audience. And I've written about blockchain technology for several different editors at several different publications. And I can tell you that the different ones, what make us great story to one editor, won't make a great story to the other editor. So you need to think about who do you want to talk to? And then for me, this is just my personal bias. I really care less about how famous the person is and care more about if they're actually solving a problem in doing something.

If you're not getting coverage, go do the work. Go out there and make a change. And then I'll go and report on that because it won't even need to come from you. I'll hear it from people. That's interesting. Do you ever find that, like, a lot of the time, PR folks will try to clog your inbox with you need to talk to this expert, you need to talk to this expert, and you kind of think, well, if I really need to talk to them, it wouldn't be you who's making the introduction. Like literally every day of my life. Exactly.

What do you think about that? Because that's how I see it go, well, you know, if I really need to talk to someone and so, you know, one of my close colleagues or connections in the crypto space would be like, Frank, you need to talk to this guy. Exactly. I mean, that's, you know, I don't remember when it was the last time I was like, oh, yeah, I'll talk to this person that got pitched to me from a PR person, like maybe never. You know, it's always like sources saying like you have to talk to so-and-so.

And especially when there's so much noise, I mean, I might begin. getting pitched good people, I might be. But, like, I'm not going to figure it out when I get, like, so many PR pitches every day. Like, it's, like, not going to be possible. But I get a signal, like, oh, all these people that I think are smarter saying I should talk to so-and-so, then that's a big, strong signal. You have a question? To the Laura's point, I'm interested.

You get millions of emails, as you say, every day. We're talking about three bullet points in an interview. A million? So I'm one of those being timing. So my question is around timing. the crypto space is so rapidly saying a new company's multiple every day

what's your recommendation or optimal timing for the company to come to you and say hey I've got I think this is great you mean time of day? No no no timing is in how far long do you think the product should be out there should it be a week before

do you want to know the day of do you want to know after the fact where you've got some data behind you when do you think you should be pitched there probably isn't one right time Yeah. It probably depends on a number of different factors.

Gosh, this is a good question. I mean, it may just depend on the reporter and what type of work they do because, like, now for my podcast, you know, I'm not going to put, like, something that's just launching on the show, right? Like, I might do it on the shorter show, maybe if there's, like, some compelling reason. But, you know, I get a lot of pitches for announcements right now, but, you know, I don't have any place where I'm writing that kind of story. So I just, I mean, it's good that people are sending me that.

I want to keep abreast of what's going on, but I'm not going to immediately be like, oh, like you're launching this week. I'm going to stick it on my hour-long podcast. Like, that doesn't make sense, you know. So it probably just depends on what the reporter does and, you know, what type of outlet they have. But I think one thing that I would say is, like, when a project is early stage, I think one good signal that I can get is, like, who the investors are. If the investors are people where I know, you know, they know what they're doing and they've got a ton of projects. and they have a really high bar, like that at that point can say something to me about, you know, what kind of promise this has. So if you have good investors, but it's early, like, it still might be worth letting people know about what's going on and generating buzz. One other thing I will say about that, though, is that there are some, there were some moments in the past one. I probably made the wrong columnist, but I was being cautious about what I was mentioning earlier about how everyday people put their money into these things and they might lose their money. So there was a period where I didn't want to write a

about coins before the ICOs. So, for instance, like, I knew about TASO's, like, you know, nine or ten months before the ICO, and I thought about writing about them then, but then I just got nervous and, you know, just kind of was maybe too cautious. And then Wired eventually wrote about them. But, you know, that's maybe something else. I mean, now in this day and age, like, when there are so many ICU, like, I don't even know what reporters have a stance, you know,

whether their stance is to write about things before after the ICU. but that was something that I did consider at that time. Do you have any thoughts? I think for pitches for me at least, if someone says they're going to revolutionize the shipping industry, like I am going to need to talk to two people in the shipping industry who you have specifically helped. I mean, for me, I don't, it's just not going to rise to the level.

If I get that pitch every day, 70 times a day, like, we're going to revolutionize X. Well, I want to talk to the guy on the ship right now. now. And if not, I'm not, there's no chance I'll write about it. So there's just so much of that. You need to show me the real world problem, but I need to talk to the get person who is behind the real world problem, who you're actually helping. They need to explain the exact mechanics of what problem they're having now and how this specifically helps them. Otherwise, it's a non-starter for me. Because the stakes are so high because there's so much of it, right?

I probably have three emails in my inbox from MovieCoin, three different companies. three different companies. And we're trying to revolutionize producing. And it's like, what's going on here? And it's not just, you know, the folks at the place is sending me an email. They have representation. And, you know, it's not their fault. They don't know that there's all these projects in the exact same thing.

It's like, you know, how then do you navigate that, you know? Can I just say something? Okay. I also think if you were very early on and you don't have the kind of traction that we would hear about it otherwise naturally, something that we've talked about before, but it also is relevant to this, is being a good source and building a relationship and being a resource. I'm going to be really spontaneous, and I'm sorry, Swarm, I'm going to pick on you, but it's in a good way. So, yeah, exactly. So I wrote about Swarm, and I was extremely critical of them, and they continued

to be a great resource for me, even when they didn't have something going on, they were trying to promote. And that, to me, says a lot. So if something else comes up and, you know, maybe it's early on, I understand, like, the relationship we have in which I can trust them to be a resource to me and they know that I'm going to be hard and that's okay. They're not going to ask me to co-write the stuff with me. And I think that that goes a long way when you have something that's really early stage is just letting actually being a resource to the reporter and not bombarding us when you don't have news, but being available to us when we might have something that you have an expertise on that is maybe not related directly to your ICO or a launch. And so that gets into

two like you better not put all your eggs into like your launch basket, right? Like no one is sitting around waiting for you. So you need to make sure that you have, like, a PR plan in place. Like, we have a partnership announcement in two weeks. We have a new advisor we're going to announce. We're going to create our own survey. Like, you need to be constantly going to reporters with interesting newsworthy stuff. And you'll, like, again, like, it's not like some rocket's going to go to the airs

and be fireworks everywhere when you launch your company. But I will say, if you have a roadmap and a plan together month over month, over a month, you'll look back at six months and be like, and we've got two or three stories a month. Like, that's 15 stories. Like, it's doable. But you have to, like, it takes, you have to do the work. Yeah. And one other thing I would add is that probably for, you know, some kind of, like, smaller

piece of news, like when you guys are more early stage, that, like, maybe that's something coined us would cover because they're in the industry, right? But then it's only when maybe you're bigger and you have more traction than then, like, a more mainstream outlet would cover you. And I'd say offer it exclusive, too. Like, just go to one reporter, offer the exclusive and get your, like, flag in the ground story to, like, start the whole thing. Right.

Or start, or go. Or going back to providing expert commentary, right? Which is, okay, no one's going to cover your ICO or your company launch, but you happen to be an expert in this space and be willing to provide regular, outstanding expert commentary, right? And start to build your own respective brand. And then you can back into the respective stories of your company. And I think that gets into, like, having a good PR firm, too,

because, like, your PR firm needs to understand this space as well. Like, if they're not able to, like, help you with that forward vision, if they're not able to, like, spot trends that are relevant to you, like, you have to have people that, like, know what they're doing. One last question. Yes. They're in the middle. I'm Eric Griffin, reality shares.

It's a question more for the PR cases into that. And so we've been in ETS business for a long time and now are starting to shift into new products and your information in the space. Do we need to meet the PR firm? But how do you manage that strategy? Can you summarize the question? So he's basically asking like, when we start getting into the blockchain crypto space, do we need a specific PR firm just for that?

Correct? Yeah, right. And how do you coordinate those two messages? It's tough. Like we get a lot of referrals from other PR firms who have said, you know what? We don't know this space. We know where our strengths lie, and we're going to hand it off to us.

And then we have other PR firms who are like, hey, you know, I think I can do that work. I can figure that out. So it's tough. I mean, PR firms, like, I mean, we work for different companies. We're two different PR firms. We've worked on similar projects together, right? And we've managed to juggle it. The only thing I'll say is we're a PR firm that's been around for 20 years,

So we understand, you know, the industry, the tech industry, enterprise, consumer, you know, etc., etc. Financial fintech. And so we can bridge the chasm, right, because we happen to have SparkChain, which is hyper-focused on blockchain, crypto, digital technology, digital identity. But we bring in teams within, right, the agency that don't have to compete with other agency, right, so that we can help fine-tune the messaging across the board, right? You can have two PR. But you can also have two PR firms.

That's your, you guys. I think you should, you know, a good business decision is hire someone who has experience and what you're trying to get them to do. Yeah. But please make sure that your PR firms know what the responsibilities are. I'll have a lot of companies where three PR firms will contact me from the same company. That's true. And it just makes me not want to talk with that company because every single thing I do,

I'll have to talk to three different people. As a reason, if you're working with it, make sure that you work with someone who's worked with the other PR firm, right? to some extent it helps because they know how to coordinate and make sure they're not stepping on each other's toes. Well, in the interest of time, I will wrap this up. Thanks so much for thinking that this was more interesting than Jack.